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Describing it out of existence

December 21, 2004 By Uncategorized

The fact that externalizing a thing makes it disappear is usually a bad thing. Describing rather than experiencing…

In this case though…

This reminds of me of how to make a headache disappear. I�m not making this up. You describe the headache�its shape, color, and location�then you estimate how much water it can hold. You answer each question in turn, looking carefully. Then you return to the first question.

What happens is, your answers change each time through. I think this is because your headache changes. Or maybe it�s the other way around: your headache changes because your answers change. In any case there comes a point at which there�s nothing left to change because at that point the headache is gone, you�ve described it out of existence.

Message from William Commanda

December 21, 2004 By Uncategorized

Here is a message that came by way of Phil Lane, the director of Four Worlds International. William Commanda is an Elder from Maniwaki, Quebec who holds a number of wampum belts which he uses for teaching. He sent this message to a conference recently held in Vancouver:

I am sorry that I am unable to be with you for this important Conference. I have just turned ninety one, and at this age, it is not always easy to do everything one would like to. I see that you have many interesting presentations and workshops for the next few days, and I am sure that this gathering will be a very meaningful experience for you all.

As you may know, I have been keeper of three sacred Wampum Belts for over thirty years; they are not mine, I carry them for the people. The Seven Fires Prophecy Belt is speaking loudly now. It comes from the fourteen hundreds, and its prophecy foretold the coming of the light skinned race and the great and devastating changes that were to come into our lives. We are now living at the time of the seventh fire, where the crucial choice of respect for Mother Earth and all humanity is being presented with great urgency. But it seems like we are scarcely heeding the messages of Mother Earth, and her process of cleansing is taking on greater strength. In the last century, we have managed to inflict ninety percent of the damage to Mother Earth, altering climate and weather patterns, and as she grows sick, so do all her children. We all experience this in physical and emotional turmoil, as new diseases invade our environment and our lives and we look in vain for peace.

It is desperately important that we find ways to heal ourselves and learn again to walk in balance with the beat of Mother Earth. It is only then that we will be able to light the Eighth Fire of Peace. This Gathering offers opportunities to find that path to healing and hope. I hope you will all benefit richly from this experience.

The Three Figure Wampum Belt that I also carry dates back to 1700. This Belt signifies the sacred agreement my ancestors made with the newcomers, the French and the English, to share the grand natural resources of the continent of North America, Turtle Island, together with our values and culture, in three equal shares. Our people stand at the centre of this agreement. Our people were a generous people, and they could not have imagined the extent of the invasion of our lands that would follow. We never did receive our fair share of the resources of the land, and today, the indigenous peoples are the poorest and most powerless. And because our values were not reflected in the development of this country, Mother Earth is suffering and we are no longer peoples living in harmony and balance.

It is of vital importance that we learn to heal ourselves and reclaim our strength and our rightful place. As we learn to forgive and love again, we will grow in strength and lead the path to peace and healing for all humanity.

William is an amazing teacher. When I lived in Ottawa, I often heard him teach using the belts.

Living the perfect day

December 21, 2004 By Uncategorized

Good old whiskey river:

“You have not lived a perfect day, even though you earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

— Ruth Smeltzer

The Work Less Party

December 20, 2004 By Uncategorized

My old friend and neighbour Tom Walker has surfaced as a candidate for a new political party here in BC: the Work Less Party.

Tom has been a passionate advocate for the 35 hour work week for as long as I have known him, seven years or more. He has done some really interesting labour relations research in his day too. With the launch of this political party, it’s clear that he has put his money where his mouth is. The party is no joke…Tom’s work has largely been about the social, economic and cultural benefits of a 35 hour work week, and if that seems too narrow a peg to hang a platform on, well, it beats tax cuts as the hub of a constellation of solutions.

About Seeing, Part 3

December 20, 2004 By Uncategorized

…most of us live as if we are seperate from nature. Whereas a deer is fully in its body, we have retreated into our minds. By thinking, we have set up parameters that divide the universe into things that can be categorized, and we call that understanding. This gives us a sense of power and control. We look at a forest and say, “That’s a white pine. That’s a white oak. Over there is a sugar maple,” and we think we know the forest. But we have no real contact with those trees. We miss the details – the subtle curves of the branches, changes in the texture and colour of the bark as the light fades or the wind blowing on the dying leaves. We do not embrace the forest with our whole being; instead we label it with our minds…

…Our security does not lie in the control we have over nature, but rather in the quality of attention we bring to our lives. If we care about our relationship with nature or our relationship with other human beings, that caring demands our attention. Caring is attention. When we really care about another person, we want that person’s needs to be met. We are present and attentive. That person’s needs are our needs. We pay attention to them. There is then the possibility of sensitivity, initimacy, communication, and harmony. The tracker in the forest is in love with his or her surroundings. In nature, we are open to a larger perspective of self. We learn to walk carefully on this planet. We learn to see it.”

— from Tracking and the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes pp. 21-23 passim

When I was in university, I researched and wrote a paper on the James Bay Cree and their efforts to negotiate a deal with the governments of Canada and Quebec in the eraly 1970s. The deal, which became the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was negotiated between communities of largely traditional indigenous peoples and two levels of Canadian government, with a very sophisticated industrial utility, Hydro Quebec, watching in the wings.

In the paper, after doing scads of archival research at McGill University, my co-author Gary Heuval and I discovered that the Cree negotiators, all of whom were hunters, had actually viewed the entire exercise as a hunt for unfamiliar game in strange territory. To prepare, they readied themselves as they would have for a hunt, including consulting with the community about its needs, dreaming the territory, equipping themselves with the right tools and becoming familiar with this prey they were seeking. By adopting a traditional approach, they were able to negotiate a treaty and bring home what the community was requesting, as if they had spent a winter out on the land dreaming up moose and fish, and harvesting enough to support everyone.

This is what seeing is. As Rezendes points out, seeing is a process of becoming unified with one’s environment so that you understand yourself as a part of it, rather than as an aloof observer. Becoming wholly integrated with your environment means that you can begin to dream the opportunities that are inherent in it, much as a traditional hunter dreams about the place where he or she will meet the deer that will become food. Only with the utmost care and attention, does seeing, in this deep sense, result in this integration.

As Rezendes says in this interview:

“It has more to do with stillness than with movement. It is about slowing down and blending in. It is the ability to melt into the forest,” he says. Tracking allows people to drop their everyday personae, until the forest no longer realizes that you’re there. When you become the forest, when you’re silent inwardly and outwardly, the forest starts to wake up, to move. “It’s amazing what can happen,” says Paul. “And we become more sensitive to what usually goes unnoticed. This kind of intimacy then naturally begins to manifest in our everyday life. By seeing, feeling, and following without threatening or disturbing, we discover that everything we encounter is what we’re looking for.”

We can find that field of practice in the forest or in the office. Organizations are nature too, as are the environments in which organizations operate. But to bring this capacity of deep seeing to those settings, we need the same degree of care and attention as the tracker does: we need to be able to “become sensitive to what usually goes unnoticed.” Simply running numbers, doing surveys and conducting consultations will not make clear the opportunities that are inherent in the chaos of the present. We must practice a little deeper, take all the information and sit with it until the future emerges into our sight, like a deer track in the jumble of forest litter.